After a week that included what he described as exaggerated headlines about a police visit to his Montreal-area home, Laraque noted that he never applied for the political job but is happy to continue doing it as a volunteer.

“I’m not going to fight about it,” said Laraque, a former professional hockey player who was known for dropping his gloves on the ice. “I’m helping out for free and I’m just happy that my presence is boosting the audience when we do conferences… It’s good for the party. It’s good for what we’re doing. But if somebody thinks they can do much better then (they should) go ahead, contact the party and I’ll be okay with it.”

Several media outlets reported this week that local police had raided Laraque’s home on the south shore of Montreal, but he said the reports were “totally blown out of proportion.” He said investigators were seeking records related to a private legal dispute with a former business partner that started last April, but no charges were laid against anyone.

“Until everybody has all the facts, which I can’t go into right now, it’s easy to judge,” Laraque said in a wide-ranging interview with Postmedia News.

While his political rivals have occasionally joked in private about controversy surrounding Laraque, the Conservatives, New Democrats, Liberals and Bloc Quebecois all passed when asked to comment on the police action this week.

“I don’t meddle with the leaders or deputy leaders of other political parties, and the other political parties don’t meddle with the Bloc Quebecois, and I’ll leave it at that,” said Bloc leader Daniel Paille.

Green Leader Elizabeth May said she has known about the dispute between Laraque and his former business partner for months, but is supporting her deputy leader since he is not under investigation.

“If I were to find out that Georges was being investigated himself, I’d ask him to step aside during the investigation,” May said.

Laraque, who chose not to run for a seat in the 2011 federal election and considers himself to be “more of a spokesperson” for the party than a deputy leader, believes some of his critics simply don’t like his views.

“I’m kind of a controversial person because I say what I think and I stand by things that people find really unusual – like I go picketing on the streets fighting for animal rights,” he said. “When you do that often, you get criticized and that’s the life that I choose and I’m used to it, and I’ve never stopped because of criticism.”

Laraque, who has more followers on the social networking Twitter website than Liberal leadership hopeful Justin Trudeau and almost as many followers as Prime Minister Stephen Harper, also said he was approached by other parties to run both at the provincial and federal level in safe seats. While he accepted May’s offer, he said he turned down the others because he doesn’t support their values.

“She asked me over the phone and I said “no,” and then she came to Montreal and talked to me at my restaurant for an hour,” he said. “So how can you say no to Elizabeth May? At that time we didn’t have a seat yet and she really wanted me to work with them and help her to be the first (elected MP), which happened.”

He said he not only talks about Green Party policies, but he lives “green” by driving a hybrid car, having a vegan diet and fighting for animal rights, among other things.

“Elizabeth knows that (I was approached by other parties) and we made jokes about that a couple of times,” he said. “But the thing about that is that if everybody only joined winning causes, then where would the world be? Sometimes, you’ve got to be like Elizabeth.”

Laraque said he didn’t run for a seat in the last election because he’s working with World Vision Canada on a project to build a children’s hospital in Haiti. He said he would be in a conflict of interest if he were elected as an MP, and didn’t want to abandon the humanitarian project.

But Laraque said he expects to complete his work on the Haiti hospital project by next year, which may allow him to run for a seat in the 2015 election, perhaps in Edmonton, where he lived for 10 years and still visits.

“When this (Haiti) project is done, then after that I would work to choose a good place to be a riding and try to do everything I can to (be) side by side Elizabeth and try to rock the House of Commons together,” Laraque said. “So when she starts a motion, someone can second it.”